[lojban] Re: New to Lojban and a question

[John E Clifford <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

In most political discourse (as opposed to at
least some political science), "conservative" and
"liberal" have become mainly words of praise or
condemnation (often both by the different sides
in a debate).  They probably, in that sense, have
exactly the same Lojban form "bad polital
position" and "good political position" 
(assuming that "bad" and "good" are entirely
subjective: maybe "liked" and "despised" would be
better).  At least some political scientists --
when not act8ively members of some group -- try
for objective definitions in terms of goals,
priorities, appropriate actions, and the like in
a variety of areas and then come up with words
(occasionally -- and often disastrously -- the
traditional labels).  I would suggest that, when
Lojban needs to get political labels, it creates
ones that are at least intended to be descriptive
of an approach to governing.  Then, as just
noted, we canmfight about which -- if any (and
probably not) -- means "liberal" and which
"conservative." The performance of modern liberal
and conservatives, traditionally so called --
indeed of more specifically named parties, like
Labor or Democrat or Christian Socialists -- in
the light of traditonal (late 19th through
mid-20th century) positions for those names,
suggests that the old words are quite nearly
useless -- them what has 'em don't do 'em as well
as the old concommitants no longer running
together.
 
--- Theodore Reed <treed@surreality.us> wrote:
> On Sat, 2005-03-26 at 11:44 -0800, Ryan Gray
> wrote:
> > Hi! I am new to Lojban and find it a
> fascinating
> > concept.  This is my first time posting to
> this group.
> > I have also have a question. What are the
> Lojban
> > translation  for various political terms. The
> reason I
> > ask is that "conservative" in Russia means a
> very
> > different thing from "conservative" in the
> United
> > States. Likewise, Thomas Jefferson was
> considered a
> > "liberal" in his day even though his views
> would be
> > VERY different those of from someone like
> Teddy
> > Kennedy. Today, many would say Thomas
> Jefferson would
> > be closer to being libertarian than either
> > conservative or liberal. I would think that a
> logical
> > language such as Lojban would have more
> precise words
> > for these ideas. 
> 
> Actually, even in the US, there's disagreement
> over what the word
> conservative means. I describe myself as very
> politically conservative,
> and folks are surprised when I'm an
> anti-christian heathen.
> 
> When I say conservative, I mean something like:
> cmalu turni sarji
> When other folks here say it, they tend to
> mean: slabu tadji sarji
> 
> To answer your question, I'm not sure the words
> exist yet, but it
> wouldn't be hard to make them. (Although we'll
> all be fighting over the
> glosses.)
> 
> mu'omi'e.bancus
> 
>